“If I were you, I would consult Paunu. He is a tahunga; he probably knows just what to do in cases like this.”
Paunu displayed professional interest.
“It is an uruaitu,” he diagnosed, using a word long vanished from the language of daily speech, “a ghost-head.”
“A ghost-head,” he repeated. “Who has had cause to work sorcery upon you?”
“As far as I know, I have done nobody any wrong.”
“Temata has cast a spell on you,” suggested Roki, who did not like the daughter of Maru. I recalled the grievance that young woman cherished against me, proceeding from that fateful joke of weeks ago.
It was unfortunate that my blunder had been directed toward Temata, who was of a peculiarly sensitive and proud disposition. Others of my friends might have overlooked or forgiven such a slight, having compassion for my ignorance. But Temata had already a rather difficult time of it at Tepuka. Of alien birth though of Tepuka ancestry, with a smattering of foreign ways derived from residence at Fakahina and in Tahiti, and deficient thereby in the fundamental art of a Tepuka woman: the making of hats and mats—she had developed a deep-seated inferiority complex and a correspondingly active defense mechanism which caused her to be stigmatized by the native sons and daughters of her ancestral island as “teoteo,” which might be translated “uppity” or “big-feeling.”
Paunu turned to Temae, grandfather or great-uncle of the suspect: “Has Temata worked witchcraft against Pari?”
“Nonsense!” scoffed Temae. “Temata does not know witchcraft.”
“What then could be the cause?” I queried.
“You must have committed some sacrilege without knowing of it, and a spirit has entered your finger. Perhaps you have walked too near a grave.”
“Perhaps so,” I agreed. I did not tell them of the time when, having heard that the spirits of the ancestors arise on moonlight nights and walk along the road that passes the tiny cemetery, I had gone there and sat on the stone wall of the House of the Dead for the time it takes to smoke a pandanus-leaf cigarette, and no spirit had appeared.
“Will you invoke the spirits for me?” I asked Paunu.
“I will do so if it becomes clearly necessary,” he promised. “But first let us see what can be done with medicines. My daughters will go to the forest and pluck herbs. We may be able to cure this illness by natural means.”
Roki and Tauhoa talked of island medicine as they gathered the young leaf buds of the karauri and the flower buds of the piupiu and crushed these things upon a stone. Roki chewed a bit of the green leaf of a young coconut tree, spat it upon the mixture, and bound the poultice upon the finger with a strip of cloth tom from a clean pareu, relating meanwhile their previous cures.
“The first time Pini the son of Maono went to Fakahina, he came home very ill. He could not eat. We made medicine and in one day he was well.”
It appeared, however, that the medical skill of Paunu’s daughters was not equal to my case. Next day the pain and swelling had reached the shoulder; the arm was paralyzed and I shivered with fever. Keneti was visibly alarmed.
“Paunu,” I insisted, “you will have to make magic.”
Now Paunu, although a sorcerer of sorts, is also a prominent member of the church of the Sacred Heart, and he was clearly reluctant to traffic with the ancestral spirits by means of the ancient magic, except as a last resort. These things, he would have explained if I had persisted, were things of Satan. Still, if it became necessary to fight demon with demon, he assured me he would do so.
“Go first,” he counseled, “to Toriu. He and his wife Tinaia, daughter of Temae, know the rakau nati. You have seen this medicine used. Did not Noere the Younger break his leg when he fell over a canoe? The leg was treated with that medicine, and now Noere walks about and plays marbles with the other boys in the street. Go to Toriu and Tinaia, and
Paunu displayed professional interest.
“It is an uruaitu,” he diagnosed, using a word long vanished from the language of daily speech, “a ghost-head.”
“A ghost-head,” he repeated. “Who has had cause to work sorcery upon you?”
“As far as I know, I have done nobody any wrong.”
“Temata has cast a spell on you,” suggested Roki, who did not like the daughter of Maru. I recalled the grievance that young woman cherished against me, proceeding from that fateful joke of weeks ago.
It was unfortunate that my blunder had been directed toward Temata, who was of a peculiarly sensitive and proud disposition. Others of my friends might have overlooked or forgiven such a slight, having compassion for my ignorance. But Temata had already a rather difficult time of it at Tepuka. Of alien birth though of Tepuka ancestry, with a smattering of foreign ways derived from residence at Fakahina and in Tahiti, and deficient thereby in the fundamental art of a Tepuka woman: the making of hats and mats—she had developed a deep-seated inferiority complex and a correspondingly active defense mechanism which caused her to be stigmatized by the native sons and daughters of her ancestral island as “teoteo,” which might be translated “uppity” or “big-feeling.”
Paunu turned to Temae, grandfather or great-uncle of the suspect: “Has Temata worked witchcraft against Pari?”
“Nonsense!” scoffed Temae. “Temata does not know witchcraft.”
“What then could be the cause?” I queried.
“You must have committed some sacrilege without knowing of it, and a spirit has entered your finger. Perhaps you have walked too near a grave.”
“Perhaps so,” I agreed. I did not tell them of the time when, having heard that the spirits of the ancestors arise on moonlight nights and walk along the road that passes the tiny cemetery, I had gone there and sat on the stone wall of the House of the Dead for the time it takes to smoke a pandanus-leaf cigarette, and no spirit had appeared.
“Will you invoke the spirits for me?” I asked Paunu.
“I will do so if it becomes clearly necessary,” he promised. “But first let us see what can be done with medicines. My daughters will go to the forest and pluck herbs. We may be able to cure this illness by natural means.”
Roki and Tauhoa talked of island medicine as they gathered the young leaf buds of the karauri and the flower buds of the piupiu and crushed these things upon a stone. Roki chewed a bit of the green leaf of a young coconut tree, spat it upon the mixture, and bound the poultice upon the finger with a strip of cloth tom from a clean pareu, relating meanwhile their previous cures.
“The first time Pini the son of Maono went to Fakahina, he came home very ill. He could not eat. We made medicine and in one day he was well.”
It appeared, however, that the medical skill of Paunu’s daughters was not equal to my case. Next day the pain and swelling had reached the shoulder; the arm was paralyzed and I shivered with fever. Keneti was visibly alarmed.
“Paunu,” I insisted, “you will have to make magic.”
Now Paunu, although a sorcerer of sorts, is also a prominent member of the church of the Sacred Heart, and he was clearly reluctant to traffic with the ancestral spirits by means of the ancient magic, except as a last resort. These things, he would have explained if I had persisted, were things of Satan. Still, if it became necessary to fight demon with demon, he assured me he would do so.
“Go first,” he counseled, “to Toriu. He and his wife Tinaia, daughter of Temae, know the rakau nati. You have seen this medicine used. Did not Noere the Younger break his leg when he fell over a canoe? The leg was treated with that medicine, and now Noere walks about and plays marbles with the other boys in the street. Go to Toriu and Tinaia, and
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